Background Story

19 December 202119 December 2021

Long time no see

The last post was in March and then it happend. For my birthday in April, I received unexpectedly a 3D printer. A very cool tool, which I already made good use of. But for the printing a lot of preparation is needed, so the time behind the computer was not spent on maintaining the blog. Combined with some house renovation it, it got a little silent here.

The past period I haven’t gamed much. But I have used the 3d printer to create new miniatures and terrain. So I will try to make an overview.

From the projects already on the list, i mainly printed some terrain features for frostgrave. For the other projects no new development. But I have also started some new projects, were the 3D printer create most of the miniatures. I have bought the folllowing rule sets:

What a Tanker – Two Fat Lardies
The Balkan Naval War (Broadside and Salvo) – Long Face Games
Hordes of Things 2.1 – Phil Barker, Richard Bodley Scott and Sue Laflin-Barker
Portable Wargames – Bob Codery

I also came in contact with Remi. He is developing a aerial firefighting miniature game. And I have supplied some miniatures to him, and plan to play the game also myself. Lastly I have also found some nice scenarios in the WSS magazine, which I hope to play out. This all resulted in the Plastic pile.

Frostgrave

The first things I printed was terain for Frostgrave. As I already had a selection of miniatures I needed terrain to play on. As Frostgrave requires a lot of terrain I gave myself some options. I have started to paint some of it. But still need to finish it. Mostly some houses and ruins

What a tanker!

What a tanker has interested me since it release. Due to the quick flowing rules and simple dice mechanics. I have doubted for quite some time, finaly ordered the rules. With the 3D printer it is quite easy to print some tanks ans play. And with a large colelction available at Thingverse from Bergman, almost any type you wish is available. I have printed the first batch of tanks from all over the war. I have scaled everything to 10mm so I can use the terrain from Frostgrave/Pikemans lament. To complement this, I have also printed some Normandy houses. Everything now ready to be painted.

Hordes of Things

I have been following the stronghold rebuilt blog for quite some time. And have read most of the battle reports of last years weekly hott battles. This gave a good interest in the rules. After reading more online, it is a ruleset with easy rules. And I realy like the troop generalisation. Therefore I decided to buy the rules. To test them out, I need some armies. So I have started to print some earthenkind miniatures from Dutchmogul on Thiniverse in 15mm. For a second army I am still searching for a good idea. Maybe dwarves or a banana army (see Thingiverse). This is the most recent project and ongoing.

The Balkan Naval War

On this blog I have already mentioned earlier that I was interested in some naval wargaming. When the summer sale was on wargame vault, I got the Balkan Naval war with a good discount. In combination with a set of 3d files of most relevant ships. The ships are printed. So now should be painted.

Aerial firefighting

Remi is developing his rules. These are not playable yet. But to prevent that I cannot play them when they come out. And as I had already collected some models, I have also printed a couple for myself. These are now in painting station. Still lot to do. Check out his blog or facebook group. https://loadandreturn.wordpress.com/2021/08/02/scenery-elements/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/535173060911395/?ref=share

Various others

Beside the above projects, i have also tried some other things. Trying to print some 2mm figures, as I already had bought the forward march library. Printed some other planes for the cold war forces I already have. Printed a fokker T.V. bomber for my may 1940 forces. And designed and printed some Dutch kazemats and sherman tanks for my father. Besides this there are a lot of other ideas. Sometimes even trying to print something.

I hope to take up the blogging and wargaming again. And trying to finish some of the project. I hope to write shorter blogs, to motivate me to blog more often. And also to be able to store all the odd ideas that pass by.

9 January 20219 January 2021

Shooting Napoleon era Muskets

Next to wargaming, I also have another hobby. Target shooting. Just before the Covid-19 period I recorded some black powder shooting. It is one of the greatest disciplines to shoot. Especially flint lock shooting, as it is quite unpredictable, a lot of smoke and a loud bang.

So some Napoleonic era shooting with some explanation.

Enjoy!

9 January 20219 January 2021

2021

And the time has flown by, and I have not posted that much last year. My life has changed quite considerable. Most of it is not directly Covid related. Becoming a father and finding a new job, has changed my time allocation. Therefore not much progress, and even less time to blog/record this.

A DIY Battle mat. I started with a 30 by 30 cm sample piece. Cotton with a Chaulk and sand top layer, with some turf and grass as decoration. I am planning to make a larger 90 x 120cm version for my 2mm army projects.

But I will update a little on the progress. I have started a complete new project. With the order for 2mm Burgundian army, I have also ordered 1 Roman army and 1 Dacion/Germanic army. Last two weeks I started with these tho armies. Basing them and preparing them for painting.

Next to that I have painted some scale models. That was a hobby I started before I learned wargaming, and what makes me somewhat experienced in painting models. I still like make and paint these models. So some periods I will spent more time on those projects. Maybe I will show someday some of these models

Some paper terrain, just a small test piece I made. Some cardboard layers with brown paper top layer and watercolor paint.

I also started painting the Frostgrave army/Characters. Together with the 2mm armies, I ordered some extra 10mm soldiers from irregular miniatures. I have based these, and painted 9 skeletons, 5 characters and 1 giant. I hope to take some photos and update on this in the near future.

Next to this, I have played several games with my father. As it is family and the Covid rules allow still visits I am lucky I can make some games. But less frequent as before. We have played 1 game of Infinity and 1 game of Chain of Command. My father has a decent army in 20mm for the early war Germand and Dutch troops. We hope to play some more games, as it are interesting rules.

The Germanic/Dacian army sorted out before basing

With this first post this year, I hope I will start updating a little more often. Hopefully at least ones every month. But no guarantees. I certainly will post another video after this post. One I starter earlier, which involves some Black Powder shooting. Something slightly different and hopefully informative.

with regards.

20 January 202020 January 2020

War of the broken Wills: turn 1-3

During the weekend I found some time to start the campaign. So I played the first 3 campaign turns. Next step are two battles, to end turn 3.

Start of the campaign. Two armies are marching from the South in the west. And the other three in the middle south

Above you can see the start of the campaign. Red pawns are my armies, black pawns are Potential Enemy Forces, turning into a yellow pawn, when resolved to be an enemy army.

My plan is to march with two different groups, as quickly as possible to the capital. Due to the rivers and roads, these two entry point would be the quickest.

End of turn 1 (blue D20 as turn marker in bottom right)

After turn one, marching up along the roads. Enemy movement was not that much, which is quite logical as they will try to defend.

Closing in on the first bigger towns, enemy forces, will try to block the road.

In the West, I tried to sneak past the enemy, but their scouts got news of our troops, and did catch the second army by surprise. In the East, they just blocked the road and hope to stop us as soon as possible, by moving forward one of their armies. I don’t know what they have in reserve.

On both fronts it turns into a battle. I still have to roll for the scenarios, and find my troops. I have found a solution for the playing area. A printed grid, with some fields from google earth in the background.

I didn’t have time to play the first game, but looking forward to them. Until now, it was just half an hour, including setup and finding nice pawns. Up to the battle next.

16 January 202016 January 2020

campaign: War of the broken Wills

The only army which is in a reasonable state to play some games, is the 2mm Napoleonic armies. I want to play some more games this years, and play also some solo. Therefore I have ventured into the realms om Imagination.

The basic idea is, to have a simple campaign system, without a lot of bookkeeping. Playing multiple battles in an evening or Sunday afternoon. I have created some backstory. Probably not the best. But a reason to move some troops and play games.

The campaign system is created by myself, simple moving some armies from area to area, to secure the capital, and destroy the enemy army. Enemy movement is mostly based on the chainreaction system from two hour wargames.

The battle which will happen when two armies will occupy one area, will be played out with the Simplicity in Hexes rules, which I found on the blog of Jay Ward, with again some enemy behaviour based on the chainreation system of THW. Scenarios will be coming from the One Hour wargames book of Neil Thomas. The terrain will be a hex landscape, slightly larger as in the rules, for visual reasons.

Below I will tell the background story, and show the map. The map has been created with the help of the fantasy map generator on the web. (see link below) the data has been exported to QGis, a map making tool. Playing around, some visual formatting was done. If you like the map, you can download it for your own projects, and also the more detailed rules for the campaign in the links provided at the bottom.

The year is 1785, 7 years after Marcus Fontusius Rethida and his sister Cillia Rethida were forced to leave their beloved country Ukkhinbar. They had grown up as prince and princes at the royal court in the Capital Wawic. But had to flee south during the coup. Their own nephew had murdered their father and crowned himself emperor.
Now it was the time to march back to their hometown. Five large armies listened to their command. When they had left, they had been young. Heading south they found rest in Segifell. A rough city, were you’re live was most precious. They had met an old man, which had taken them into house. The 17 year old twins, had been weeping and sleeping for a week, they had lost everything. Only the ring, received from their father was still on their finger. The man tried to comfort them, and learned them a riddle: “Bait with smelt to catch a cod”
The first year they worked here and there. Creating more and more connections, and growing a larger network. Both on the legal side as on the dark side of the world. After three years, Marcus and Cillia started to think about revenge on their Nephew. They started to employ people for their cause. Now after the 7 years, they have amassed 5 armies. Built from mercenaries, pirates and adventurers. But very loyal, as long as they paid regularly.
They had only a limited amount of money, so they had to do a quick campaign. Moving as swiftly as possible, to liberate the capital. After that they would deal with the rest of the country, but would have access to the treasure of the crown to pay the armies. Spies are reporting multiple armies which are defending the capital and surrounding lands. The only way to their home, is forward.

Deployment

Enemy start with 9 PEF Armies
You start with 5 armies, two under command of Marcus and three under command of Cillia.
Each army is 6 units. Scenario determines how many units are involved in each battle. Following OHW scenarios

Scouts have reported nine possible enemy forces (PEF), you will enter the lands from the south.

You start on southern edge, with 5 armies, deploy as you wish.
Enemy start northern cities with 9 PEFs. 1 PEF start at other side of water to the right.
each campaign turn is 1 day.
Capital must be reached within 30 days, to ensure you can pay the armies to complete the campaign.

Plan

I hope to start the campaign next weekend, most of the things are ready.

rules
armies
dice
terrain pieces

Only the hex grid for the scenarios I have to arrange. I have the possibility to print on white paper. The files are ready, but I am thinking in a little more pleasing solution, with more eye candy. I don’t have a solution yet.

This is just my first try, to play a campaign, have a backstory. I don’t know how it will turn out. And probably adapt the rules on the fly. Hope it will make some fun.

Sources

Simplicity in Hexes rules: Jay Ward :http://flagsofvictory.blogspot.com/p/simplicity-in-hexes.html

One-Hour Wargames: Neil Thomas, Pen and Sword 2014

Morale Napoleon, grand tactical rules for the Napoleonic wars: Two Hour Wargames

Fantasy map generator: https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/

Document links

Basic_campaign_map_3 Download

War of the broken wills Story and rules:Download

9 January 2020

Geography of a Battlefield – “The origin of the Dutch landscape”

The origin of the Dutch landscape

In this post I hope to provide a quick overview of the history of the Dutch landscape.

The Netherlands before the Roman occupation was partly sand and partly a marchy, swampy peat landscape. The southeastern parts (in light yellow and ochre) is higher and mostly consist of sands. The west and north is mostly covered in peat (reddish brown) with some swampy areas and streams (light blue and light green). Historical there is not much known on this area. There are some hunter gatherer communities, as found from archeological digs. But there is not much recorded on what actually happened.

During the roman occupation, or annexation, the cultivation of the land was started. They dried out the peat areas, to create farmland and to obtain fuel. this started around the bigger streams and rivers. As these were used as way of transport. And where the ancients highways. Most roman forts are found next to the rivers. The drying can be seen in the peat areas which are getting smaller.

Up until the medieval times, the cultivation continued and the large peat areas were getting smaller. The additional effect was, that the land was getting lower. When peat dries, it will shrink. Also it will start to rot, reducing the height level of the land. This is important in the next few ages, as it will increase the risk when a flood happens.

After multiple floods (between 1000-1200 AD) the sea has reclaimed some lands. The zuiderzee (southern sea, nowadays mostly called Ijselmeer) has increased in size, and the northwestern part of the Netherlands is a lot smaller. To reclaim the land of the sea multiple projects are started to make polders. This will continue the next centuries, with hightpoint around the 17th century. But also the modern day Flevoland has been reclaimed from the Ijsselmeer, as shown in the above map, with the projected contours.

The next step will be to focus on the Gelderse vallei again. Located in the middle, just below the Ijselmeer. Some large peat areas are still present, providing some economical interest.

Podcast

Quite recently I have been listening some podcast about the Dutch history. This quite interesting with a lot of information, and gives a quick overview of how the swamp land had grown into the Netherlands.

See their website or check on spotify

Sources:

Vos, P. & S. de Vries 2013: 2e generatie palaeogeografische kaarten van Nederland (versie 2.0). Deltares, Utrecht. Op 07-11-2019 gedownload van www.archeologieinnederland.nl

https://www.republicofamsterdamradio.com/historyofthenetherlands

13 November 2019

Civilians in wargames

First to start with a disclaimer. I am quite new to wargaming, and have not played a lot of games. So probably I will overlook a lot of rules and concepts. But I will try to write some summary I could find right now.

In general wargames don’t bother to much with civilians. I have read a couple of recent wargames battle reports and most did not feature any civilians. When they do participate I could identify a couple of reasons:

Objective

Think about farmers defending their crops against raiding and stealing cattle. Most of the time not part of any team, but acting like some kind of military units with low capabilities. The actual live and living of these civilians is most of the time not considerd, and wont have impact on the story or campaign. This is mostly used in medieval or more ancient battles and sometimes in fantasy or sci-fi adventures.

Civilians with tools(or weapons) Pendraken 10mm

( Negative or Positive) modifier

It is not good to have civilian casualties, but they are only some negative modifier to the end score. Often seen in ww2 air war games, were you try to recreate bombing of a city, were missed bombs (which have civilian causalities) generate negative points. But is might also be used in modern urban warfare. But it might also be used impacting morale, as the civilians are liking your side more or less.

(Moving) Obstacle

Those refugee streams can clog up roads, or make moving around more difficult. It just act the same way as terrain feature, impacting your military forces. They might be moving around as a walking forest is which you only see in fantasy setting, so refugees make up a more believable story, in historical setting.

Unexpected military unit

This is mostly used in modern irregular wars, were mobs of civilians are either blocking your road, or suddenly turning back on you and showing itself as military unit.

Conclusion

Starting the research I had expected that there would be not much ways to involve civilians in wargames, but multiple different ways have been discovered. The only one missing, which would make sense from human rights perspective, is a direct head on head wargame, civilians against a militairy power, where the civilians do not use weapons, but score by avoiding casualties. I haven’t found a system what uses these kind of mechanics yet. Maybe I have to create my own.

Now looking back at the original question:

Can wargame rules include human rights violations, and still teach us a lesson, while telling the (his)story?

I don’t think the mechanisms above tells something about human rights violations. They do take civilians in account, and can create good (his)stories. But don’t teach us about human rights violations.

For this I have to search futher or create my own. From computer games I want to highlight two examples, which takes some civilian live into account. The first is “This war of mine”, which is a game where you play as civilian in a warzone, and try to survive in your house. You are searching for supplies and encounter thereby other people, were you can steal their supplies or fight them. The emotional aspect has some place here, as it feels not good to steal from an elderly couple. But if you don’t get the supply, one of your characters die. The second game is “Conflict Zone” were two parties battle, but the resources are civilians. For the “good” side, you try to save as many refugees as possible, for the “bad” side, you don’t care, but need to indoctrinate as many civilians as possible.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conflict_Zone_Coverart.png

Maybe these games can be a good inspiration for finding a solution. Hope to expand this research in the future.

6 November 20196 November 2019

Geography of a battlefield – “Modern day Gelderse Vallei”

In my research on the Battle of Scherpenzeel and the Stichtse oorlog from 1481, I have recently digged into the topic of geography. If you want to wargame this war, you need terrain, and it would be nice to know how it would have looked. Because this already quite long ago more than 500 years, it is quite complex and difficult to determine. Therefore some basic research is needed, and probably some estimated guesses.

I have not written before on the battle of Scherpenzeel, but I hope this post (and the following with similar topic) will give a good bit of background information, to place the different events and actions on the map. My primary research will focus on the Battle of Scherpenzeel. Later on I will also dig into other area’s, but that will require new research.

Gelderse Vallei

Scherpenzeel is one of the villages in the Gelderse Vallei. Translated the valley of Gelre. Gelre the is the province or region. To start off, the modern day map of Scherpenzeel and surroundings. Also showing some other important places from this battle.

When looking to this map, and thinking of the Battle of Scherpenzeel, there are a couple of places which will become important for this battle

Wijk bij Duurstede, the place were the Burgundian troops departed
Area between Bunschoten and Hoevelaken, the place where they started raiding.
Amersfoort, the origin of the Amersfoort Army
Scherpenzeel, the place which did give the name to the battle.

Don’t forget that the Army did march between those points, so the routes become important to.

The next map will show why this area is called the Gelderse Vallei. This is the modern day height map of the area. In green the heigh, the darker the color the higher the area is. The red line is still showing the province border, and Scherpenzeel is laying in the middle. To the left you see the dark area which is called the Utrechtse Heuvelrug (Utrecht Hill ridge) On the right side the large higher plains are the Veluwe area.

In the northern end of the map you can see two different colors. The reddish color, which is Flecoland. This is reclaimed land, and is below sea level. This did not exist before the 1950’s. The pink areas are polders, next to the river Eem. These areas where the place which were raided before the battle of Scherpenzeel. Part of the research will be, when these polders were actually dried up, and what the impact was on the landscape.

In the next post on geography I hope to focus more on the history of the Dutch landscape in general, and the influence of humans on this. After that I will focus on what the landscape of the Gelderse Vallei consisted off. Laying the bases to make an estimated guess on the map of those days.

Sources:

Data used is been made available by PDOK, an open dataset of the Dutch goverment. (https://www.pdok.nl/) The map has been created with QGIs. (https://qgis.org/en/site/)

25 September 201925 September 2019

Book Review: Mercenaries and their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy

A while ago this book was part of an discount of ebooks bij Pen and Sword. I bought and downloaded it, hoping to have some 15th century warfare stories inside. So I would have a better period feel for the 15th century projects. I am not really interested in the Italian wars, but it is part of Europe, and even in that period soldiers (and mercenaries) could already travel for long distances. So these soldiers could also fight in the other wars closer to the Netherlands.

The book itself does tell the story of Italian warfare, diving into the political aspects. Also the intrigues and conflicting city states. Naming a lot of companies and there commanders. It does occasionally describe some battles but only in general matters, focusing on the outcome and impact on the development of the mercenaries systems, and rise and fall of the different companies.

Conclusion

The book did focus on a different subject than I was interested in, and did not include the detailed descriptions on tactics and fights with mercenary groups I hoped for. If interested in the Renaissance Italian wars, this book is probably better suited, but cannot tell how well this is compared to other books. Probably not a very helpful review for others.

7 August 2019

Ethiopia Campaigns

After reading the books on the Ethiopian history and air force actions, I hope to create multiple campaigns. Trying to simulate the different wars and operations. I think I will play most of these campaigns in solo mode. Testing out the Missle threat Solo rules and the Missle threat mercenary air campaign. I have divided the history in the following operations:

United Nations Operation in the Congo (1960-1964)
Eritrean war of independence (1961-1991)
Ogaden war, Ethiopia-Somali (1978)
DERG period (1978-1988)
Badme war, Ethiopia-Eritrean (1998-2001)

For most of these periods there were a lot of engagements, but most are not described with a lot of details. Therefore for gaming purposes I will simplify these eras, and create some kind of alternate-history. This enables to use a campaign system and generate some raids and air clashes, from tables.

At this moment I don’t have any planes yet. Therefore more detailed plans will be made when I acquire them. A big inspiration will come from the Cuba Libre! blog. This was one of the reasons with the air wargaming, and also lead me to Lacquered coffins and Missile threat rules. Please check out his work, especially his Phantoms over Havana series.